I've been waiting literally years for my next Palm phone. The Pre is awesome, but I need a GSM phone. The news today that there will be no unlocked GSM Pre with an english style keyboard may be the last straw. I'll wait another month or two to see how this pans out, but it's looking like I'm giving in and getting an iPhone. Perhaps someday Palm will deliver a real "open" phone and I'll come back to them. But I'm just tired of waiting. I need a better browser than my Treo 680 and I need an unlocked GSM phone. So sad, so fustrating.

PS: I'll be getting an iPhone here in New Zealand where they are sold unlocked.

Well, I might be able to live with some swapped keys, but that would be a major annoyance, possibly negating the advantage of the physical keys. For the longest time I swore I'd never buy a keyboardless phone, but after time with friends' iPhones I see the on screen kb is not bad, now it's a preference rather than an ideology.

At this point it's not clear I could even use that German (Or hacked UK/European) GSM phone as I'd like to anyway. We don't know if you'll be able to register/setup/upgrade these phones on other carriers. Perhaps things will work out, I'm not abandoning all hope, just not optimistic given the recent news.

The big disappointment is that Palm seemingly isn't at all concerned with giving us a phone not locked to a provider. Perhaps it's just in their interest, but it's not in mine.

If they change this and offer supported, unlocked/unbranded WebOS phones (hopefully with more than a pathetic 8GB memory!!!) I'll certainly consider getting one in the future.

could be worse you could be on sprints network unable to get an unlocked phone and have no option but to go with the pre, I myself would trade anything except for my great sprint service plan to get an iphone 3gs.

So you have been waiting for the Pre for a long time, but after you used your friend's iPhone, you like it better. That's perfectly fine. The iPhone is still a great phone. Just don't rationalize your reason for this as you don't want a GSM Pre with a few swapped keys. I guess pretty soon there might even be people willing to swap in US keyboards for a good price.

... Is this true that Palm will NOT be offering an unlocked GSM version of the Pre? ...

I believe the unlocked Pre will be available from O2 in Germany. The other European O2 countries will have locked GSM Pre's. According to other threads here, the available date for the Pre on O2 in Germany is 10/13/2009. I've also read that this unit has a slightly different keyboard layout from the US model.

I believe the unlocked Pre will be available from O2 in Germany. The other European O2 countries will have locked GSM Pre's. According to other threads here, the available date for the Pre on O2 in Germany is 10/13/2009. I've also read that this unit has a slightly different keyboard layout from the US model.

If it was possible to get the O2 unlocked version here in the US, then the next step would be to swap in the GSM card, but I'm not sure that's going to be possible without an 'official' unlocked GSM release from Palm in the US.

Honestly, I don't see how Palm could have the GSM version locked that wouldn't be possible to get around with not much effort. I mean, we basically can look at all of the webOS source code as it is. The radio control stuff is in services, but all of that has to be called by the Javascript that we can look at anyway.

Don't quote me on this, (and DEFINITELY don't base any decisions on this guess), but I'd guess a month or two after the GSM Pre is released that someone figures out how to unlock it.

I spoke to the Palm dealer in Beirut (Lebanon) and he mentioned that he will be getting the Palm Pre GSM unlocked version (we dont have locked phones in Lebanon, all phones are sold unlocked, thank god). He says arrival date is November and price will be similar to Europe.
Been waiting for an unlocked GSM version since Jan.

This means there is an unlocked version ready for distribution (in the Middle East at least). Strange how no one is mentioning this.

This means there is an unlocked version ready for distribution (in the Middle East at least). Strange how no one is mentioning this.

The first time anyone has mentioned that (or that I've seen), is your statement. Is there anything to back that up? e.g. pricing, advert, poster, official collateral, etc. that suggest either it's availability, its price, or its arrival date?

They always come out unlocked, maybe not in the beginning. Plus, someone always unlocks them... Stop whining..
Even in days of locked GSM Treo's Cingular (ATT) would unlock them for you.
Have fun with that iphone, I never did.